He mouthed the words that he knew his mother would follow up with, “Don't-you-use-that-language-young-lady.”

  Three weeks later, there was still no lights or television and not a lot of food. His father would walk to the end of the street in the morning and climb on a big military truck. Often, he wouldn't return until the next morning. He brought small boxes of groceries, was always tired and mad, or was it sad? They were given strict orders to not leave the house, keep locked up. One day when his father caught him sitting on the small back steps, he grabbed his shoulders so hard he thought for sure he heard his bones crunch, “God-dammit boy. I told you to stay in this house.” Dad wasn't the mushy type, but he'd never handled him so roughly or looked at him the way he did that day.

  Taylor stayed inside. His sister was not prone to mind, one day she was gone. Two days later, his father came home carrying her like a child in his arms, wrapped up in a dark green military blanket. Alive, but beaten close to death, dozens of small slices on her body and raped. He didn't know what raped meant, had to be bad. He truly believed the house would wash away in the tears that his mother cried. Before the sun was up the next morning his father arrived in a grumbling army jeep with no top and two tanks of fuel on the sides.

  “Get what you can, Babe. We're leaving. Move damnit! We're getting out of here. Help your mother, Taylor.” Streams of grief and fear still trickled without pause from his mother's eyes. He gathered what he could, his mother sobbed out some instructions. Moments later the jeep jerked and surged around dead cars and dead bodies, his sister's head lay in his lap and her swollen face was turned against his small young form. Her battered body still curled up in a blanket, he struggled to keep her from bouncing around. His father maneuvered the jeep away from the littered interstate highway and onto the back roads.

  The first place his father set up their tent was on the outskirts of a town about fifty miles south. The town wasn't as large and populated as the one they fled, their camp was set up in a spot with no one around in sight. He trusted his father but that first night stretched for frightening hours, broken by exhausted sleep. Over the coming years, Taylor thought more than once about how tough his mother had been. She was awake with the sun, standing beside a small portable stove. Coffee bubbled in a pot, eggs cooked in a skillet.

  His father pushed a loaded rifle into her hands, said “Anybody comes around, shoot them.” His large hands lifted her sad face, “You hear me? Don't let anybody near the camp.”

  She nodded okay. Taylor and his father left on the first day for what would be a way of life for the years to come, even long past when the jeep had fuel and was abandoned. Days of searching for food and supplies, dangerous days of avoiding when possible and sometimes facing head on confrontations with the desperate. Their life became a constant struggle to survive and one camp faded into the next one—the one that would be safer.

  The sister wasn't to be the young sassy teen that he loved ever again. She healed physically but talked very little, he never saw her smile and she never saw her twentieth birthday. A picture that would for all his days be implanted somewhere in his brain was her pale face, eyes wide open and fixed on the canvas tent roof. When he tried to wake her, the blood from her wrist dripped down on his feet and the wet puddle that he stood in oozed up through his socks. To this day, wet socks gave him a sick feeling in his gut.

  Strangely, his mother seemed to be completely out of tears. They buried his sister there at that camp and their life trudged on. He missed his sister and he missed the laughter and warm care of his mother. She was as hollow as the mountain caves. When she did hug him, it was a suffocating squeeze so intense it was scary. In a cold winter campsite, three years later, his mother touched his face for the final time and drew her last pneumonia heavy gasp.

  The day that Taylor killed his first human being, he and his father had been on their own for nearly five years. This was also the day that partnership was dissolved.

  He and his father sat near the camp stove that morning, in two old lawn chairs they had been proud to find on one of their many scavenging safaris.

  “I'm thinking that we'll go around to that south part of the city today, Son. That old man we bartered with last week was going on about a trading market he heard rumor of. I could really use some ammo for that M9. I haven't had even a sniff of alcohol in it seems like years.” He lifted a metal cup that had some pale weak and warm tea in it, his mouth turned down. “Damn, a cup of coffee would be better than sex.”

  “You dream big, don't you, Dad?” The bond that the father and son had formed made the laughter come easy. For himself, there had never been a chance to form a taste for coffee--- and sex?---partners weren't just roaming around like the wild antelope they often hunted in the high meadows.

  His father had stories and once even said, “We might ought to find you a women, boy. You could use a little hands on training.” He couldn't say he hadn't thought about a women, he thought about it plenty. They had encountered some pretty nasty, rough women. He was a typical young man with wants and needs, but the thought of getting close to some of those females just wasn't tempting enough. Not yet, anyway.

  He learned a lot about his father the past five years and he learned a lot from him. No question, he would be dead by now except for the man. The parent did what was necessary for the two of them to survive. Taylor respected the strength and intelligence of his father and he saw goodness in him.

  “We've got a few decent things to trade. Doesn't hurt to dream, you know.” The day was warm and they both wore long sleeve t-shirts. The city that they ebbed and flowed around in their small migrations was lower in elevation than much of the surrounding areas, a valley that got plenty hot in the summer. Not yet though, not summer yet. His father leaned forward in the chair and it creaked out a warning of dilapidation, he placed his elbows on his knees.

  “Taylor, before we head out, want to talk to you about something.”

  “Sure.” They had lot's of lengthy conversations. Once, about a year ago, they uncovered twelve old stale unopened beers. At first, Taylor thought it tasted like pure warm piss. There was a small stream nearby and they placed the beers in the cool water. After gagging down a couple, it began to not be so bad. The talk got loud and raunchy. The next morning, his head filled with spiky hammers, he thought his Dad was relieved to know that he didn't remember very much of it. Truth was, it only made their bond stronger.

  Continuing, his father kept his eyes on his hands and said, “It's been rough these last few years. I wish that I could've given you a far better life. You didn't even get to be a kid. Your sister and mother deserved so much better.”

  “Don't know what I would've done without you,” said Taylor.

  His father's eyes met his now. “You've seen some things and you've seen me do some things that I wish hadn't happened. I still have hope, especially for you, Son. I want to believe that the world will get back to at least a resemblance of what it used to be. I don't ever want you to think that taking another person's life or possessions is a right thing, that disregard for other people for your own benefit, cruelty or dishonesty is justified. I've had to do things that I've been ashamed of, but I've always been proud of you. I want you to survive. I don't want to think that I've taught you to be ruthless.”

  He had never, even when his sister and mother died, felt the pain in his father as he did now. Maybe he had grown to be enough of a man to swim to those depths. “Not once, did I ever think that you made a hard choice with no looking back. I thank you for taking care of me and for teaching me how to take care of myself.” His father had given him a quite rare hug and that was the end of the conversation.

  Before the end of that day, these words between them would wash back over him as he sank into his own deep hole.

  It was an enjoyable day at the trade market. Lots of people there, bartering and making deals. It felt reasonably safe. Taylor found all the eclectic goods and people interesting. They didn't find the ammo for the M9 but located a small amount for a pistol that he carried and some for an old .22 rifle that he actually got as Christmas present the year his world turned upside down. A man with dark skin roasted antelope over an open grill, they gobbled up some lunch and bought some extra to carry back to camp. A small jar of instant coffee, seal unbroken made his father smile. It took some hard dickering, a jar of precious sugar, a large belt buckle and two old silver quarters finally bought it. Then there was the fifth of home made liquor.

  “This won't go down like that beer. We'll have to be a bit more careful,” he laughed as he slugged back one burning sample. Taylor shook his head negative, maybe later at the camp.

  In and out of the crowd all morning, Taylor had spotted more than once, a woman that he couldn't help but notice. She was careful not to make eye contact with anyone, he could see she definitely paid attention though, to who was near her. Her hair was short and dark. The pale shirt tucked into jeans that tucked into boots and left no doubt that she was woman. She had a pistol at her waist and a rifle over her shoulder. At one point, he was near enough to see that her eyes were dark, her skin creamy tan. A strong voice with a rhythm to it that he hadn't heard before, said, “No, no that's bulls—t, man. I'll give you this for the pouch.” She haggled over a small leather bag.

  The day rolled away and the camp would be a thirty minute or more walk, he and his father moved back toward home base. “You know, things might be getting a little better. It's been a good day. Lots of good stuff at the market and I didn't see any major trouble,” said Taylor. He wore a back pack with their deals of the day in it, shifted it a little. “I heard some talk about things that are going on in the city. Some people are even getting paid jobs working at some new businesses and they say that up in Denver, some areas have electricity and water.”

  “That'd be good. Can't ever let your guard down though,” said his dad. “I think it would still be pretty dangerous, living in the city.”

  “Probably true,” he said. “You know, Dad. I kept seeing this woman today....”

  His father turned his head, smiled at him and then in a blink, he fell to the ground, blood spurting from his neck. Before Taylor could bend to him, he felt the tug at his pack. He whirled and shot, a dirty man fell to the ground. A second man was close behind him and he shot him without hesitation. He was enraged, he was stunned. A third man was running away from the scene. He fell to his knees beside his father and shot at the fleeing attacker, the man stumbled but kept on moving. There was no goodbye, his father was dead.

  A few people observed at a distance, no one came to help. He sat and rocked on his bent legs, his face wet. He wanted to lift the body, carry his father away. He knew he couldn't, his parent was bigger than him. He wanted to scream at the top of his lungs into the sky that was losing it's warm light. What was he going to do?

  The boots came into view beside his father's body. He instantly raised his gun and jabbed it at the figure in front of him. The woman from the market didn't flinch, knelt down on the opposite side of the body, “Freak-in' dirt bags,” she said. She reached for the body's wrist, checked for a pulse to be sure.

  Taylor had no doubt. “I can't leave him here,” he forced the words from his mouth.

  The woman gently rolled the body over to it's back and moved to the feet, picked them up and looked at Taylor. He pushed himself up, lifted his father's shoulders and they begin to walk, the body suspended like a hammock. They had to stop three times and get their breath before they reached the camp site. The woman never spoke and never complained. A very dim light remained when Taylor rolled the body in a blanket, a good distance from the tent. He sat on the ground, next to his father. His head dropped to his arms across bent knees, coyotes was the single word he said.

  The woman went to the tent. She returned and placed a jacket on his shoulders, spread one blanket on the ground opposite the body, rolled another one up under her head and slept. By the time the sun was high the next day, the body was covered with piles of rocks that he and the woman gathered. Taylor placed one last large rock at the head of the grave, walked to the tent and layed out on the cot. The tears that he inherited from his mother would not be stopped.

  Through the next two days, the young man slept and drank from the bottle of liquor, sat on the cot and the river from his heart never seemed to run dry. He was twenty one years old and he was alone. He wanted to be dead, like everyone he ever loved, he wanted to have any relief from his pain. On the third morning, barely conscious, for just a moment he thought his mother must be cooking breakfast. The aroma of food cooking drifted into the tent. He tried to open his swollen eyes more than a slit. A blanket covered him but he only wore his jeans, no shirt, no boots. Willing his body to sit up, he slid his socked feet into his boots, didn't attempt to lace them. A shirt lay across the foot of the cot, he slipped it on.

  The sun was like needles on his squinted eyelids as he pushed open the tent flap, his jelly filled legs took him to the rickety lawn chair.

  “It-t-lives,” said a soft voice and the woman handed him a metal cup, the smell of coffee steamed up from his lips to his nostrils. He doubted that there was an inch on him that didn't ache, but he welcomed it, didn't want to think anymore.

  “Lauren,” the woman said.

  “Taylor.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Comings and Goings

  Taylor's telling was interrupted once again by the grinding sound of an engine growing slowly closer. Above the noise, a voice said, “See ya later, Sue...couple of days maybe.” The tractor's chugging gradually faded and left the landscape once again washed in the sounds of nature. Boots clomped across the porch of the green cabin, where numerous dogs now lounged. The smallest with it's head on the paw of the newest and largest.

  “What the hell, are you? Equine or canine?” Kevin's hand reached for the screen door, “Cody...Dad?” Inside, his gaze fell on the stranger sitting at the end of the table.

  Jeff stepped forward, “Son, this is Taylor. He's a traveler.”

  Cissy gave her brother a smile, she knew that the two men, as well as she and her mother remembered well being travelers. She assumed that her father was giving Kevin a bit of clue about the man. Her brother didn't offer a hand to the man, just nodded. She wasn't surprised, this was a stranger. Kevin moved over and took a seat next to Bubba on a long sofa, covered with a clean blanket, the sofa had seen plenty of use over these last years. David and Shawna's two daughters sat in chairs across from the couch.

  Kevin gave Bubba a hard punch on the shoulder as he sat down. The young man said, “We're just hearing the stranger's story.” He raised his eyebrows at his favored one of the girls and grinned, “I think we might be getting to the romance part.” The girl didn't return his smile.

  The man, Taylor, looked around at the many faces in the room. They had listened with apparent interest to his story so far. Cissy waited. She knew that every one of the family had their own stories, still like herself they were already intrigued. They wanted to hear what had happened to him for the last twenty plus years, since his father was murdered. There was a curiosity about life away from their sheltered community.

  Cissy's father sat down near the man at the table, “So, after your father was killed, the woman helped you. What did you do then?” There was an empty chair at the opposite end of the long table, Cissy pulled it out, tried not to stare at Taylor.

  ***

  “There was never a discussion about whether Lauren would stay or go.” A low sound of amusement came from Taylor, “She was just there, didn't leave. There were lots of things that we didn't seem to need to talk about. She was a few years older than me and had been on her own for a long time. God, she was tough and smart, I learned a lot from her. Lauren and I were partners, a good team.”

  He looked over toward Bubba and the others sitting in the living area, “And yes, there was romance. She was very loving but always guarded. There were never children and I didn't question why.” Turning back to the others in the room, his gaze lingered just a moment on Cissy's. She quickly broke the eye contact and shifted a little in her hard backed chair. Here, too---a guarded and tough woman.

  His weary voice filled the expectant silence of his hosts. “We continued to camp around the edge of the city. After about three years, we moved into the city. There did seem to be some progress being made. We lived in a one room apartment, two bathrooms on the floor, shared with about ten units. We had running water, never really trusted that it was clean. I wouldn't have taken even a sip without boiling it. Outside, there was a big yard area, always fires going there and that's where you'd cook if you wanted hot food. Eventually there were even areas of the city where some electricity was provided. Too expensive for most to live there, though.”

  Taylor felt exposed, didn't really enjoy telling strangers his personal business. But he was tired, he needed to stay put and get some rest. It was necessary for him to make these people comfortable and to finish his story.

  “I should've taken my father's advice and kept us away from the city. I found work here and there. A couple of old factories were in partial operation, lots of bars and small jobs.” He dug some silver coins out of his overall pocket and laid them on the worn table. “Usually got paid in coins, sometimes goods for trade. There were rumors of a strong organized group that ran most of the city's higher paying and unsavory operations, the drugs, the prostitutes. I was warned more than once to just steer clear of anything to do with that group. I did just that. I never really knew what Lauren did all day. She was quick to tell me, I can take care of myself. I had to accept it, she'd been doing that long before I came along.”

  Cissy's dad walked around the table, a little closer to the story teller, “What about law? Any kind of government, any military or local law enforcement?”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14